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Communication Skills Question Paper
Communication Skills
Course:Bachelor Of Education Arts
Institution: Kenyatta University question papers
Exam Year:2009
KENYATTA UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS 2008/2009
INSTITUTE OF OPEN LEARNING
FIRST SEMESTER EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF
EDUCATION
UCU 100: COMMUNICATION SKILLS
DATE: Monday 19th January, 2009 TIME: 8.00 a.m. – 10.00 a.m.
=====================================================================================
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Candidates MUST write their registration number in the space provided on
each answer booklet.
2. There are FOUR questions in this paper. Candidates must answer ALL
FOUR – (4) questions.
3. All answers must be written in the answer booklet provided.
Question 1
Reading Comprehension – (25 marks)
Read the passage below and answer questions which follow it.
LAW OF THE GRAZING FIELDS
In this story, Amina has been caught by her brother, as she was about to run away with
Yalla and has been locked in a hut. Her family want her to marry Jama, who has near
finished paying the bride price, but she hates him.
Now she was a prisoner in the hut, but Amina found it impossible to imagine that Yalla
never would be hers. There must still be a chance. If only he could somehow manage to
free her from this prison and take her to his hut before Jama paid the full price of five
hundred cattle, she could still be Yalla’s by right of his might. No one could deny this
law of the grazing fields. All cattlemen knew it and respected it.
But how was Yalla to know where she was or when Jama would be coming. Everything
was over, Amina decided with a fresh burst of tears. She began to cough. The air in the
little room hung heavy and thick. And then her brother’s voice cut in roughly.
“Fire” he shouted. “Fire! … Yes … Whoo … fetch water … Fire!”
Amina started. Heavy fumes began to fill her little prison. She was coughing and gasping fearfully. Desperation gave her the strength of ten. She flung herself at the door.
A hand pushed open the door, and a man’s rough voice urged her, “Follow me. Its Yalla”.
Her heart gladdened, but no words came to her choking lips. The man’s arm circled her waist and swept her off her feet.
“There she is!… Brothers, there’s our sister. Catch her! …”
“Yalla,” Amina sobbed, “What shall we do? They are coming”.
“Let them try. My hut is five miles from here. It will be a good race”.
She felt herself carried across the encampment and saddled on a horse.
“Away, now!” Yalla shouted. “Away…”
Every forward leap of the horse shook her bones. Her hair streamed in the wind. Behind them came he brothers, pitiless cunning riders, dangerously angry. Amina could clearly hear the clatter of the pursuing horses. By Allah! What could she do?
Twang.
That was an arrow. Best to give up now.
“Oh, Yalla, let us get down and go back home. It’s useless running in this manner”.
The man’s laugh, big and thunderous, made her feel silly.
She was the first to see the light in the distance.
“My hut,” Yalla said. “My lonely hut!”
“Our hut , you mean.”
He laughed again.
Twang! And Yalla moaned. “They’ve shot me! My back …
Allah save me, I’m dying …”
Before the words were out of his mouth, Yalla was sliding down the saddle, for an arrow’s poison acts fast. Yet more arrows twanged past even as the distance between them and their pursuers narrowed.
“If I die, you go ahead. They can’t touch you once you’re in my hut. It is the – the …”
Terror, panic. Amina looked over her shoulder and saw her elder brother’s figure appearing out of the darkness. Yalla had barely enough strength to crawl. Amina dragged him on. She was a girl of the veld, fresh, strong and brave. He was growing weaker every second. They were actually in Yalla’s settlement, but not in the hut.
“You thief!”
A few yards behind the paddocks, just beyond the poultry yard, Amina bent down. With all her might, she seized Yalla and pushed him into the hut, falling in after him.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
“My wife!” he meaned. “Mine at last!… But first, this arrow.
You can still save me …. The medicine ….”
Amina’s brothers drew up before Yalla’s hut.
“You thief!” they raved. “Give us our sister.”
“Thief?” he sneered. “You are the thieves. Have you not stolen the bridal horse?”
“Our father, Jama, will know no rest till you’ve paid him for the cattle he now loses.”
“Leave that to me,” Yalla said. To Amina he murmured, “Oh my back.
The medicine …”
The brothers wheeled their horses and rode slowly back to their own camp. One of them said: “That lad, Yalla, he is a man. Setting fire to our camp, stealing our sister, and then calling us thieves for taking back our own horse which we saddled for another bridegroom! The law of the grazing fields. He’s won.”
(Slightly adapted from “Law of the Grazing Fields” by Cyprian Ekwensi.)
a) In the first paragraph, what was the law of the grazing fields?
[4 marks]
b) Why was Amina worried? [4 marks]
c) How are Amina’s brothers described? [4 marks]
d) Why did Amina suggest that they stop running away? [2 marks]
e) What would happen to Amina if Yalla had died before they reached inside the hut?
[4 marks]
f) What made Amina’s brothers to return to their camp without her? [4 marks]
g) What gave Amina the strength to pull Yalla all the way into the hut? [3 marks]
Question 2 – Library Skills – (20 marks)
a) Give reasons why classification of materials in the library is very important.
[5 marks]
b) The following bibliographic details for each reference are not in the correct order. Rewrite them in order using a style of your choice with the correct punctuation and underlining.
i) 1960, Language and Language Learning, N. Brooks, Harcourt Brace and world, New York. [5 marks]
ii) Second Language Development, 1980, S. Felix, Tubingen, London, (ed)
[5 marks]
iii) MIT Press, 1966, (2nd edition) Cambridge, Universals of Language. [5 marks]
Question 3 – Study Skills (10 marks)
a) Mary is a first year student who has problems with organizing her self study because she has seven units to study.
In point form, suggest to her five activities that she can do to make studying easier. [5 marks]
b) Discussion groups are very important and useful at the University. Give five factors that make a group useful. Include the formation and the activities.
[5 marks]
Question 4 – Writing Skills – (15 marks)
You have been given the following topic to write an essay on. “Discuss the benefits of
education for the girl Child”.
a) How would you go about looking for information for this topic? [5 marks]
b) Write a plan for the essay with the following parts, the introduction, the body and the conclusion. [10 marks]
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